UK: minister calls for lessons on fruit eating

Overweight people should be given lessons in how to eat fruit and vegetables, a health minister said yesterday. Caroline Flint said too many Britons are refusing to eat fresh produce because they see it as "scary food". She wants supermarkets to provide in-store demonstrations on how healthier food – even apples and bananas – should be prepared and eaten.

Flint said that Britain’s life expectancy rates could fall unless urgent action was taken to halt rising obesity. Her warning came as the government released a health map of England showing the country was fatter, drinking more and taking less exercise. More than 8mn adults were drinking more than they should, childhood obesity has risen by more than 5% in the last decade and record numbers of young people were binge drinking.

Speaking exclusively to the Standard, Flint admitted the government faces an uphill challenge-to persuade some people to adopt healthier lifestyles. She cited a parent at a recent seminar held by the Department of Health who said she was intimidated by "scarier foods".

"What she was talking about was vegetables she had never seen in her life before. Here’s a fruit you have never seen before. What do you do with it? Do you peel it? Do you boil it? Do you chop it?" she said. Flint said the solution was to provide cookery lessons in major stores.

"If people are calling some of the healthier foods ‘scary food’ because they are not sure how to prepare or cook them it doesn’t matter how many times I bang out a leaflet saying eat this - it is not going to happen," she said. Flint also plans to introduce vouchers for families on low incomes which can only be exchanged for fresh produce.

She warned that the government may make it obligatory for supermarkets to carry "traffic light" style labels if they fail to sign up to an effective voluntary code. Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose have agreed to the scheme which uses red, amber and green labels to represent high, medium and low levels of salt, fat and sugar. Tesco is persevering with its own system.

Flint said: "It is still confusing for shoppers if there are lots of different systems and there are two different systems lining up at this stage. The test will be, does it affect behaviour? Does it affect the way people shop? "And some of the research coming out of those using the traffic light system is it is starting to shift people’s purchasing to healthier options from less healthier options."

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